pickVery good history of a great scientist and his devoted oldest daughter who was a nun. Clears up myths etc. Much of it is in his daughter‘s letters. Quite touching in parts.
25 likes
pickVery good history of a great scientist and his devoted oldest daughter who was a nun. Clears up myths etc. Much of it is in his daughter‘s letters. Quite touching in parts.
This ebook is also on sale for $1.99 and I couldn‘t resist it to continue my readings from #Italy for my upcoming trip. Is studied Galileo in college for a class about the Scientific Revolution. I wonder how much I‘ll remember
Will read a book l have had in my TBR list for a very long time!
so-soThis book mostly focuses on Galileo and especially his second trial under the inquisition. His daughter was a large part of his life and she wrote him hundreds of letters that have survived and that the author translated.
Sadly, the book is not actually about S.M. Celestine, but her famous father. She barely factors in and it was sad. Also the author defends the Catholic Church‘s mistreatment of Galileo with no evidence and no reason.
2/5 stars
pickEasier read than I expected. Dava Sobel does a great job of keeping the narrative style in this fact-heavy memoir. I learned a lot reading while reading it. One of those books where I stop every other page and ask my nearest loved one “did you know??” Did you know Galileo died a year before Isaac Newton was born??
#OnThisDay in 1632, Galileo published his most influential work, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. The first copy was given to his chief patron Ferdinando II de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. While it was originally published under license from the Vatican, within a year it was entered in the Index of Forbidden Books, where it remained for 203 years. #HistoryGetsLIT
The narrator, Jonathan Davis, does a fantastic job reading this extremely dense tale. It is packed tightly with European and ancient world history, science, and mathematical concepts. I can only listen to about 15 minutes at a time, to be honest as these areas are not my strengths. For those who are less gifted in the hard sciences, I would suggest the print version and reference sources on science and math!
pickThe author does a good job of setting Galileo in the context of his times. However, he freely admits that his take on some issues, particularly Galileo's own religious faith, goes against most scholarship on Galileo, so I'm not sure if this is really an “introduction“?
so-soThere were some facets of this book that I really enjoyed. Others that I didn‘t. In the end, it seemed a hundred pages too long.
